LJ McCray’s Potential REMAINS Untapped as Florida Gators Grapple With Major Setbacks

0:00What role, if any, will L.J. McCray play for the Florida Gators in 2026? You are Lockdown Gators, your daily podcast on the Florida Gators, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Lockdown Gators, part of Lockdown Podcast, Network, your team every day. Thanks for being a Lockdown Gators. You're first listen of the day every day. We are available daily and free wherever you listen to podcasts and on YouTube. Happy Monday evening. As always, I am Brandon Olson, your host Lifelong Florida Gators fan, host of Lockdown Gators, right about the Florida Gators for Swamp Single.com. Welcome to the five hour energy flavor draft with 18 different flavors to choose from, including new options like confetti crays, fruity rainbow, or cotton candy. There's something for everyone always. The board is set. The flavors are ready and I've got my number one pick for the five hour energy flavor draft. You know what it is? The grape. No matter what. No matter what,

1:08it's great. Find your new favorite flavor or five hour energy shots available online at five hour energy.com or on Amazon. And today we're talking about L.J. McCray who for the Florida Gators is currently listed at six foot six two hundred seventy pounds, which that means he's going to be playing F, right? And he's just an interesting player at this point because he's someone who coming out of high school insanely high ceiling, right? One of the top recruits in the class, the same DJ lagway class, right? But unfortunately we haven't been able to see anything from him really. And it sucks to say like I don't want to want to say, oh yeah, we haven't seen anything from from L.J. McCray to this point, but it's true. You haven't. L.J. McCray hasn't done anything for the Florida Gators to this point because he's been dealing with injury the whole time. And I'm not saying this to knock him or to say that he's not good or anything like that. I wouldn't do

2:11that, right? He was a five star player. He was, I think, I mean, top 10 by just about everyone, except one didn't have them there, I think, but he's someone that due to unfortunate injuries. We haven't seen him come even close to the potential that he's got. And it does stop, right? Because last year we had hopes for him. And then he got hurt very early in his season. And that's pretty much it, right? To this point, his career, L.J. McCray has been a complete non-factor. And I don't say this to sound like I'm hating on him. I've got no problem saying that I wasn't a huge fan of the film that we did see from him in Gainesville, which I don't think is wrong to say because we've seen him play less than 200 snaps in his career. He's got seven pressures in that time. That's it. That's the production that you have.

3:17There's not much to look at and go, oh, well, he's done this. He's done that. For less than 200 snaps, seven pressures played four snaps in 2025 before having a season ending injury. He's just the type where, and this is the very unfortunate reality that happens to a lot of people where injuries stun your growth or stun your development. It's not said that you can't bounce back, by the way. I want to make this one of the clear. I am not saying that he can't bounce back. I'm not saying that he won't bounce back. I am just saying that it is a fact that to this point in L. J. McCrae's career, we haven't seen him do anything because he's been dealing with injuries. And of course, we can talk about the saying of the best ability is availability, right? We can acknowledge that the best ability is availability. If you can't contribute, if you're not available to contribute, then it doesn't matter. You need the greatest player on the planet. But if you're not there, it's worthless. I do think, and I'm also going to just,

4:27this is going to sound really weird as someone that is saying I'm very skeptical of L. J. McCrae. I hate the amount of hype there is, but not because I'm like, that's not going to be him. I hate the amount of hype there is around him because I think it's putting him in position to fail. Like people go, oh, he's primed for a breakout this year. Why? He's been dealing with injury. It's not like he's been going through this whole developmental process the whole time, going through getting game reps. I don't like this weird, I feel like it feels arbitrary. To just go, well, it's year three. And so he should be making a big impact right now. Looks like maybe a blanket statement, sure, say year by year three guys should be making a big impact. But then you talk about a case by case issue. And like L. J. McCrae, there's nothing that tells you

5:29that this should be your, he makes a big jump. At his position alone, there's Cam James in Emmanuel A. Badagio ahead of him. So at best, he's going to be F three. All right. He's going to be F three coming off a season ending injury that played four snaps last year. It has way two hundred has way less than two hundred snaps in two years. None of that tells you primed for a breakout. Can he? Absolutely. The expectation? Hell no. Like, let's, let's stop putting expectations on players that are unreasonable. And then when they don't reach those expectations, we go, they failed bust. That's not do that. We're going to talk more about L. J. McCrae and how he can actually develop and improve four twenty twenty six. We go back with knocked on gators. Workplace chaos, deadlines stacking up in box overflowing. And the one position that you have to fill still sitting open when the pressure is on and you need

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7:30here going, I'm unhappy with that. That's how good they are. That's how hard they work. It's that it's at every detail extra fire. That's it. Mazda puts the same passions. Every model highlights make the real what it took that what it took to get there makes it count and there's more to a Mazda because there's more to you. That's yesterday a locked on gators. Your first listen of the day every day. We are available daily and free rivers of the podcast and on YouTube. And we're talking about LJ McCray here. I know that there's people that always get offended when I talk about not having insanely high expectations for him. But look, all of what we spoke about in the first half of this, he's going to be behind Cameron James. He's going to be behind Emmanuel Medesio. They are both going to play the F spot, which is that field side defensive end for a lot of people. Like I know that when I did the Jarela McCoy video on Friday, I had someone in the comments was, oh, strong side defensive end. That's what the F is in this defense. In this F, the strong side

8:33is the field side. And so the F is going to be a strong side defensive end. That's Cam James. That's Emmanuel Medesio. That's LJ McCray and that's Jarela McCoy. So LJ McCray should be competing with Jarela McCoy to be the third F in the room this year. That's it. Like Cam James, Emmanuel Medesio, they're better. They're proven more. They're going to get the job behind them though. Who could it be? LJ McCray, someone that it's also tough to go, oh, well, he needs to improve in this area or that area, because we haven't seen him play. It's tough to say, hey, this guy needs to improve in this area when we haven't seen him play in any area. Right? Like the most recent thing we can go back to is looking at what LJ's 2024 season. Like that's it. The 2024 season is the most recent thing that we can actually go back to and look at and say, alright, like this is what we have.

9:36It's not much. And look, he was a good recruit coming out. He was a great recruit coming out. He was someone that had great size, great natural power, could get depth on bull rushes, but needed handwork to deconstruct blocks better. He needed a pass rush plan as and more moves in there, right? And he has insanely long arms and needed to get them up quicker, right? There's some people that think he should have dropped weight and gone the jack. I disagree with that. I think if you're going to do anything with him, you add weight and put him in. Right? Like he's someone that also, he's listed as 270 pounds. If you get him up to 280, 285, that's someone that can play F in a heavy situation, three tech in a light situation, and contribute in multiple ways and play there. That's not going to happen this year, right? What you need to get is someone that is just more technically refined than LJ was earlier in his

10:39Florida career. Like year three is not when we go, oh, it's over for this kid. It's not. He said two years of college, one year was a red shirt year. Year three is now when we say it's over, give up on him. Year three with a red shirt year, a medical red shirt year at that is also not when we say it's breakout time. This is fine to roll. Can you carve that roll out? Can he? Absolutely. Will he? I don't know. I'm not in the room with him, but LJ would say someone that could be playing F, should be playing F, will be playing F. It's just a matter of will he beat Jurela McCoy for the third F in the room spot? Maybe. You get a little bit more technically refined, get a little bit of a fire lit up under your ass, and who knows what you could be because his ceiling is still ridiculous. It's not like his injuries or the types that completely stunts your athleticism and destroy your growth.

11:41They've stunted your development because you haven't been able to work fully, but LJ McCoy still has an insanely high ceiling and you're an idiot if you give up on him. Will he ever reach that? I honestly don't know. So few guys do. But he's still got it. You've still got him on your roster and you've got a better coaching staff this year than you had last year. You got time to develop him and see what it is. Injuries have been unfortunate, but I'm not writing them off. Hell no. Thanks for a lot, Don Gators. You're first listening up the day every day. You're available daily and free reviews of the podcast and on YouTube. As always, for Locked on Gators, I'm Brandon Olson. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter at WNS, or just go to our brand and find all my written work with swampsitlilatsubstack.com. And I'll see you all next time.